ඇන්ටන් ජෝන්ස්
13 songs performed
Anton Jones (ඇන්ටන් ජෝන්ස්, also written Anton Johns) was a Sri Lankan baila singer and songwriter whose recordings turned real national events into popular song. Born on 3 June 1937 and active from the mid-1950s, he is remembered for hits such as Mini Gauma and Uyala Pihala, and for being the rare Sinhala singer who built much of his catalogue around the news of the day.
Jones was born in Hulftsdorp, Colombo, into a Burgher family. He came to music through his family circle: an uncle connected him to Wally Bastiansz, the figure widely regarded as the father of Sri Lankan baila, and the young Jones learned the form working alongside that older generation of baila performers in the early 1950s. His professional path opened with radio work later in the decade.
His first commercial record was Mini Gawuma, issued as a 45 RPM single, and the song remains his signature. On Lyrics-lk it appears both as Mini Gauma and in its fuller form Salli Deela Gawuma Mahuwe (Mini Gawuma). Across his career Jones released dozens of cassettes and several CDs, a steady output that kept his baila in circulation for decades.
What set him apart was his subject matter. Where most singers worked in love and devotion, Jones wrote about events that actually happened in the country, an approach that made him, by common description, the singer who sang the news. Premawathi Manamperi Tharuniya is the best-known example, a song tied to a notorious real episode, and the topical instinct also runs through pieces like Kanthoruwa.
Alongside music, Jones worked for years as an English stenographer, serving the Bank of Ceylon and a private firm from 1963 until his retirement in 1997. He was married to Iris Jones and raised a family of four. A 2010 motorcycle accident cost him his left arm, and he died on 21 February 2016 in Colombo at the age of 78. As a baila stylist tied to the Wally Bastiansz lineage, Anton Johns left a body of work that still serves listeners who want the songs of an earlier Sri Lanka, with the Sinhala lyrics, transliteration, and English meaning gathered in one place.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Anton Jones.